Every time I start up TF2 it seems like it's normal game play, but then sometimes the ping will spike anywhere between 400 - 700 ping I've even been at 980 before and it's weird. The server's I play on are good there's an average of 25 - 50 ping (looking at the players ping) and I usually play at 2 - 15 ping my connection is good, I was wondering if I could get any help whatsoever with this problem? I am re installing TF2 at the moment hoping this will fix the problem but at the same time I am disconnecting from the steam servers quite often, will re installing steam help at all? Help please.

I don't know what is going on, but I do have the same problem. I am playing normally with pings aroud 50, then it goes up to 900!!! And I start freezing. After a few seconds it goes back to normal. Anyone has any idea what is going on?

Have you power cycled your router lately? The same thing happned to me, power cycled my router, got some canned air and dusted my computer inside and out. Started back up and my ping was no longer over 9000 (I simply couldn't resist! Sorry lol)

Has anyone found a legit answer...? That doesn't require too many downloads... I mean, I don't mind deleting things. It's just the downloading that bothers me a bit. I usually start out with maybe about 20-50 ping, but then it'll spike to 200-800.

I'm pretty sure this is an internet problem, not a TF2 problem. Online gaming can sometimes take up a lot of bandwidth, so if there's someone on the same line as you who's also using a lot of bandwidth, it'll slow down your internet a lot.